As regular viewers of her syndicated daily talk show know, Bonnie Hunt is a dedicated proponent of pet adoption and supporting animal rescue operations that find homes for abandoned or stray dogs. “It’s about setting an example and being involved when you can and giving the time and making others aware of how wonderful a rescue dog can be in your life,” says Hunt, who’s currently looking to adopt a companion for Charlie, her nine-year-old pit bull she rescued from a homeless woman who couldn’t take care of him.

Hunt keeps both Charlie and the ecology in mind by using chemical-free fertilizers on the lawn and garden at her home. “I have a compost in the backyard and use coffee grounds and eggshells -- 100% organic. It’s better for your dogs to make sure your soil and lawn have no chemicals in them.”

As busy as her day job keeps her, Hunt hasn’t given up acting. She’ll play the high school principal in the upcoming movie Hurricane Season, about a basketball team in post-Katrina New Orleans.

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“I don’t have plastic bottles in my house. I use recyclable glass,” says Rashida Jones (The Office), whose profile is higher than ever these days with roles in the new movie I Love You, Man as Paul Rudd’s fiancée and in the NBC midseason Amy Poehler comedy Parks and Recreation as a nurse who encounters local government bureaucracy. “She’s not cynical. She’s definitely a caretaker. She’s compassionate,” says Jones of her character Ann Perkins. “She sees a problem and wants to fix it. That’s kind of her M.O.” The series premieres Apr. 9.

Jones also has a role in Office-mate John Krasinski’s forthcoming directorial debut Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, as does the star of another new series, Bobby Cannavale. An Emmy winner for his Will & Grace run as Will’s boyfriend and most recently seen as a SWAT officer in Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Cannavale plays the title role in ABC’s Cupid, a remake of a short-lived 1998 series starring Jeremy Piven.

Cannavale plays a Manhattan bartender named Trevor who claims to be the famed arrow-of-love shooting Olympian who’s given a mission to match up 100 couples. Is he a god or off his rocker? “The possibilities are kind of endless to me, and that is what made it exciting. I never felt like I'd be acting my way into a corner with this part,” says Cannavale, no stranger to tending bar. “I did it for a lot of years at T.G.I. Friday’s. That’s where I learned to flip bottles,” says the car-less New Yorker, who reduces his carbon footprint by taking public transportation. “I recycle, use the same paper over and over, and I don’t use Styrofoam at all,” he adds.

The versatile actor will next be seen on the big screen as an abusive husband in The Merry Gentleman, directed by and starring Michael Keaton and due in theaters May 1.

Stay tuned for next week’s Ecollywood column. In the meantime, check out our Ecollywood videos.